Thursday, August 27, 1998 Published at 14:45 GMT 15:45 UKWorld: Asia-PacificMass execution in ChinaStrike hard campaign began two years agoBy Colin Blane in Beijing

Thirty convicted criminals have been shot by firing-squad in the biggest mass execution held so far in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen which borders Hong Kong.

Details of the mass execution were carried in the Shenzhen newspaper, Special Zone Daily, which said that at a single session of the intermediate court 39 criminals were sentenced to death, although in nine cases those sentences were suspended.

Spectators witness stadium execution

The other 30 were led away immediately to face
the firing-squad.

One of those shot had killed a woman with a knife, while
three others had murdered truck drivers for their loads.

The offenders were
sentenced as part of a national two-year long anti-crime campaign.

The
newspaper commented that Shenzhen's "strike hard struggle" had reached a new
high-point.

Rising crime in China has been linked to unemployment - a growing
social problem since the closure of many loss-making state-run factories.

Criminal gangs from economically depressed parts of China have taken to moving
to more prosperous cities in search of easy pickings.

According to the human
rights organisation Amnesty International, China has executed more people in
the 1990s than the rest of the world put together.

The group says it knows of
more than 4,000 executions in China in 1996, although the real annual
figure is kept secret.

China defends its use of the death penalty and says
capital punishment is very limited.